Says So
by Andrea Weiling
Summary: He's different than he was before.  But they're still the same as ever.  Spoilers for the Varia Arc.  Vague 8059.


Title: Says So

Author: anza

Characters: Lambo...and Tsuna (kinda)

Warnings: SPOILERS FOR VARIA ARC. 8059...somewhere in there.

Summary: He's not who he was before. And they're just like he remembers.

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"Ahh," he says, "this situation..."

His eyes slide forth to the scowling enemy in front of him. Then, as naturally as they did before, shift back behind him. They're all there, as if in a dream, standing there openmouthed. The 10th's hair is like he remembers, sticking up and wild-looking. _Boss_, he wants to cry out just once to see if that face would melt into that approval it'd show, fifteen years from now. His gaze flits from face to face - Yamamoto Reborn Tsuna and _Gokudera_, who he'd seen die in front of him just two months ago and remained a gaping hole where his heart should be - their younger faces, ghosts of childish dreams and happier days.

How can he tell them that Tsuna's dream dies before he ever ascends the Vongola throne and name, when the newly graduated Sasagawa Kyoko turns the key in the ignition of her car in front of his house and blows up into a thousand pieces? He can still remember Maman's screams and the sight of it: gray and white ash, floating down like rain over the charred, still-burning husk of a car. And he remembers Kyoko too, black and gray and red, the kind of red that seeps through and never comes out.

He'd just learned that words have power, and that if he said "please" before a request, he might get it, either from Tsuna or the girls. He'd just learned numbers, and Kyoko'd been helping him just before, her smile still as innocent as it was when she first called Lambo-chan. And the it was gone, all gone, the snacks and the good days and Tsuna's smile.

Sasagawa Ryohei had sworn if he saw Tsuna again, he would kill him. He hung onto his ring, though, and the position of the Sun remained occupied and absent, until seven years later it appeared in a pawnshop. Tsuna took it back himself, devastated and beyond apologetic. He'd barely escaped with his life. On the way back to Italy, the 10th dropped it into the Strait.

"_It was an accident_," was the explanation he gave, in that mournful dove-tone that became his regular voice as the years wore on.

But there is more - he is one of the seven, and he'll always be - there is always more to the Vongola story. Just two months ago Gokudera-san - and he _is _Gokudera-san now, one of his protectors when he was young, one of his comrades when he was older who he knew would rather die than leave his back unwatched - had pressed the ring of keys in his hand. He remembers the green of his eyes, the slow fade into desperation. He'd taken the keyring and left Gokudera-san to watch his back for the last time, perched at the top of the stairs, a rifle with one cartridge left sitting in his hands.

He'd run out of bombs. And his last words were, "_Guess I've got no choice. Take care of them._" They both know he meant the twins, only seven, who still reach out fitfully and cry _Maman!_ into the night. The only Sawada heirs left. He'd been pleased and horrified; he still wasn't sure if he was entrusted with them because he was the only one left there, or because Gokudera-san still didn't trust him to give the key to someone else, after all those years.

That's why he'd asked, "_What about Basil?_", in which the answer was just a tired, abortive shake of his silver head. _Octopus head_, they used to call him. He'd never been the same after Yamamoto left.

_It's enough to move me to tears_, he thinks, and after a moment, said so.

He remembers there wasn't enough of Yamamoto to have a coffin, so little that it barely covered the bottom of the box the 10th provided for the cremation. He can see that scene too, the little room where Gokudera-san had tracked his partner, with all its grimy and rusted detail. And he can still hear someone screaming, and someone laughing hysterically, as if he was watching the world end in front of him, all sensation of time falling into the deadened pit of Yamamoto-san's slack face. He'd been screaming. And Gokudera-san had been...laughing, and then sobbing, and the laughing again.

He turns away. He can't tell them that the Vongola line would end with Sawada Tsunayoshi, that he'd watch it all, always the younger one, the protected one. He'd watch, holding Maman's hand when Yamamoto and Gokudera exchange rings and smiles and promises. He'd watch their backs five times, a hundred times, weapons to kill blurring like mirages in his hands. He'd watch in a stiff hospital chair as the doctors and orderlies rushed around the center of the storm where Tsuna held his wife's hand and called her name softly. "_Haru...Haru...Haru..._" as the newborn babies wailed nearby. He can hear it still, haunting him, the specters of yesterday's yesterday, a razor hidden under a thin layer of velvet time.

How could he tell him he'd be the last one left? That out of seven hopefuls, out of all their friends, he alone would stand survivor to the tempest that plagued the next generation of Vongolas? That he too, would turn traitor in the end, and become a Bovino again, back in his little township in Sicily with its hot summers, its boring countryside?

That even he, who had been proud and fearless, only had stories to tell of what he'd been a part of once upon a time? The ones that already knew them didn't want to hear them again. Dino, Basil, Iemitsu. A brother doomed to see his own powerlessness where it really mattered. A vengeful hitman that struck at the Calcassa from the shadows. A bitter father who had seen, and surpassed, his son's death. All cold people who had given everything to be warm in the Tsuna's shadow, who'd shared snowball fights and fireworks and drinks when the times went bad, all who had one-by-one locked the memories and thrown away the key. Desperate, crazy people like him, behind the sheer veneer of Sicilian calm.

Tsuna's face - those brown eyes, that wild hair. The gloves on his hands, the surprised look on his face. He looks back again to those eyes. They still hold promise, hope, cherished love. They're the same ones that have told Lambo _It's okay, I'll take care of it, It'll work out, I promise..._, grinned at weddings, cried at funerals, blazed in battles. The same ones that had alighted with alarm when he stubbornly came back. "_I told you to escape! Run, Lambo!_" The same ones that Xanxus had prayed over, then closed.

_Your reign won't even last until you're forty, 10th_, he wants to say. _I'm sorry. _Their young faces break his heart.

_It all started here_, he realizes. Vague regrets fill his mind. This is his present, now. He can't control when he goes back in time, but he's here now.

He can change it, now.

_If I'd won, it'd all be different. _The thought surges up in him at the sight of so many faces that will be loved and lonely in twenty short years. He remembers arms that protected him, hands that pushed him forward, fists that had taught him better. He remembers this is his fight, a twenty-year-old fight that he will finally finish.

_I'm different now_, he thinks, and says so.


End file.
